The Proud and the Prejudiced
by Chya
Summary: This is my take on the nine months Rhade spent on Seefra before Dylan turned up.
1. Chapter 1

The Proud and the Prejudiced

By Chya

_Between S4 and 5._

He'd come through whole, Flavin had said, so how come he didn't feel like it?

After so long denying that he'd lost Gillian and the children, he'd lost Louisa, and now he lay here with his guts ripped open and exposed to the hot dusty air of what he had been informed was Seefra. Far from whole, ripped apart.

Between the Magog's scythe-like claws and waking up here, he'd had a strange dream where he'd met himself coming the other way. A self he hadn't recognised, a self that had been to hell and come out the other side a person who was somehow more powerful, darker, and more in control of his own destiny than he had ever been. The basic tenets of Neitzchean philosophy dictated that what didn't kill, made you stronger, and the other self he'd met had clearly been through a great deal that might have killed him. He hadn't liked much what he'd seen and put it down to the delusions of sick bed nightmares. But somehow, it stayed with him.

Flavin nursed him to start with, and even though his physical recovery was exceptionally fast by regular human standards, it was still enough time for some local hedge lord by the name of Thomas to scare Flavin into moving them elsewhere.

When they'd moved, a journey that had taxed Rhade's strength to the point of utter exhaustion, Flavin had gone to run an errand and not returned, leaving the ailing Neitzchean in the hands of an odd young girl of around sixteen or seventeen. Rhade didn't notice it first, being caught up in pain and sickness as his body drew upon all its resources to heal ruptured organs and shredded flesh, but she didn't exactly fit the general parameters of what would be considered normal.

Her plain features were a little bloated and her slightly vacant eyes wandered in what seemed to be a random and independent manner about her. As he became more lucid, he realised that what he had at first taken to be bedside ramblings, were in fact nonsense words and sentences loosely strung together. No wonder she and Flavin got along so well.

Flavin himself was very odd, talking in riddles most of the time, yet self assured and knowledgeable about Seefra.

He asked the girl her name and was taken aback by the ferociously intense stare he received from her left eye before it wandered off and the right eye took over the staring. A shrug was his only answer before she launched into inarticulate ramblings.

He started calling her Florence after she changed his bandages with deftly expert fingers and she didn't seem to object, even acknowledging him when he spoke it. The only coherence he ever managed to coax from her was when he was well enough to explore a little. They were living in a shack and he hobbled about the tiny rooms with her help, but she always guided him away from the door. He asked her about what lay beyond many times and eventually she said 'Flavin. Wait.' He guessed she was waiting for the old man. By now, even reckoning without the time he'd spent wavering in and out of consciousness, they'd been cooped up for quite a few days. Rhade didn't think Flavin was going to come back at all.

When he decided he was well enough to face whatever awaited him on the other side of the door, he ignored Florence's protestations and, force lance in hand, opened it.

There was nothing on the other side.

Absolutely nothing but dark yellow ochre sand running flat way into the forever where it met the light yellow ochre sky, with a strong breeze stirring up tiny little dust devils. The metal shack with its little generator was the single blip on the landscape.

From what little he could extract from Florence, Rhade concluded that she had never been left for so long by Flavin. The food was almost out, and there wasn't much water left. Waiting for no one in this little hut was tantamount to allowing oneself to die and Rhade's survival instinct was far too strong for that. He prepared to leave the place, intending to find somewhere else where his continued existence would be more assured.

Florence was a problem and Rhade was well aware that many of his kin would leave her behind without thought. She was obviously defective and should never have been permitted to live by Neitzchean standards, but she was not Neitzchean and she had survived to maturity, a miracle in this place. In her strange way, she was an innocent and his conscience would not permit him leave her behind. And besides, Captain Hunt would want her kept safe.

They headed north because at night, Rhade was certain his enhanced eyesight could make out the slightest discolouration of light in the night sky.

With Florence talking happily to herself, Rhade had plenty of time to think. Flavin had said that they were in a pocket universe without hope of rescue, but how much of what Flavin had said had been lost because of Rhade's own sickness at the time, he could not be certain. Surely Captain Hunt would be looking for him. That silly rule the Captain had when it came to not leaving crew behind made it a certainty that he would come looking. If he were able.

Perhaps he, Rhade, was the only survivor. Perhaps Andromeda and her crew were dead. Possible, though unlikely as the Captain would never permit it as his instinct for the preservation of self and 'family' if one could call Andromeda that, was on par with a Neitzchean.

The hope that the Captain would find him would help give him strength if needed, but until then, he had find his own way. He ran through all the sarcastic comments and retorts he could think of to fire off at Beka when she and the Maru no doubt came to pick him up, and at Harper when the little man would accidentally on purpose be in the shuttle bay when they landed, at Rommie who would be by the Captain's side as always. And the thought of this new surrogate family brought a warm and fuzzy feeling to him, along with the buzzing in his head.

Except the buzzing wasn't in his head. Dropping everything, he pushed Florence to the ground, his force lance out and ready as the two skimmers in the far distance grew bigger.

There was no need to believe they were dangerous, but one didn't survive long without a good reflexes and a better defence. When the buzzing became loud enough for human ears, a squeal brought Rhade's attention to the girl. She was curled up under him, shaking and clearly begging someone not to do something while one terrified eye focussed intensely on the skimmers.

The two skimmers circled them, the two men piloting them laughing raucously, making fun of the metal stick Rhade carried while their itchy fingers played with the triggers on their mounted guns.

Rhade made a token effort at talking, but they clearly weren't interested. His bone blades extended with the anticipation of battle and they stopped laughing. The witch girl had magicked up an alien, they said, agreeing that they both had to die. The two men were clearly terrified, and argued as to whether to warn the settlement or just kill them outright. Rhade took the decision from them.

A few seconds later both men were unconscious on the ground, one skimmer was a useless heap and the other wobbled patiently, waiting for someone to pilot it.

Rhade smiled as he lifted Florence and their few belongings into the skimmer. Their chances of survival had significantly increased. "So, what's this about witches and aliens?" he asked the girl, not really expecting a coherent answer.

"Things that are different are bad," she said, and Rhade looked at her. She was staring at his blades. Reaching out, she stroked one gently. "Different, bad."

That was all she said, but it was enough that Rhade ripped apart one of the men's shirt to wrap his lower arms and hide the blades before setting off towards the settlement.

Cont'd/.


	2. Chapter 2

Upon reaching the settlement, they were instantly inundated with requests to purchase the skimmer, the most insistent being Flavin until he got a good look at them and realised who they were. He and the girl seemed overwhelmed to see each other, both smiling as they hugged.

Rhade slowly picked up the things they had brought with them and hopped out of the skimmer.

"I had thought you might die, my own transport was lost," laughed Flavin, looking the girl up and down.

"We might have done if we hadn't moved out," replied Rhade.

"I'm sorry about that, but that's the way of things here. Each man for himself. Now, we must leave quickly before people start looking at her properly. Come along. Leave the skimmer, it's of no use to us."

As they left, the skimmer was already being taken away, no doubt to some dealer who would sell it for a fortune.

Flavin led them to another rundown shack amid a hundred other rundown shacks.

"So, what about her?" Rhade asked the old man.

"She came through whole, like you," Flavin replied. "Just a few months ago.

"Perhaps not so whole, like me." Rhade said, indicating his stomach, which had so recently been bleeding out into the sand.

"You're the lucky one, you healed," Flavin pointed out.

"Lucky?" replied Rhade. "A man makes his own luck and that remains to be seen. What about you?"

"Ah, now that would be a whole other story and not one ready for the telling," Flavin grinned as he poured a drink of something yellowish for them all.

"I can understand the girl keeping out of the public eye and I understand that this settlement doesn't like 'aliens'," he pointed to his wrapped blades. "But what are you hiding out for?"

"Who says I'm hiding?" Flavin started to grin again but Rhade's clear disbelief chased it away. "Ah, well, technology is banned and I'm a scientist. In a nutshell that's it. I can walk in public, but when the people are stirred up, which is often, it's best not to be around. And it's not just this settlement."

"What about the skimmer?"

"Some people are more equal than others, and those that are more equal get to play with toys. It was better the skimmer disappeared than we get caught trying to sell it. Where did you come by it?"

"A couple of ignorant peasants that didn't like defenceless girls and aliens."

"Are they still alive?"

"When I left them."

Flavin shook his head. "You should have killed them. They were probably a couple of Anthony's boys and if they make it back they'll point you out as alien."

"Consequences?"

"Who knows?" shrugged Flavin. "There are no other aliens in the Seefra system. There are freaks of nature and godlike beings who reside in carnivals, but no aliens. Except you."

"Except me. I'm right in assuming that the term 'alien' is from the 'human' point of view?"

Flavin handed out the mugs and took a deep draught of his own.

Rhade took that for assent as he cautiously tasted the mead type drink. It was foul but nutritional and he swallowed quickly. "What do people do to make a living?" he asked, grimacing at the taste.

"Steal, kill, steal some more. That's about it. Unless you want to indenture yourself to one of the mine owners. But that's a death sentence in itself."

"A planet of lost hope," Rhade muttered.

"Nine planets of hope there never was," Flavin replied. "The only way to get a reasonable job is to see Anthony. Every settlement has someone like him who rules with his gangs and enforcers."

Flavin spent a lot of time tinkering in the small corner he'd claimed as his workshop leaving the girl to keep house, which she did happily, while Rhade scouted out the locale.

His main goal was to get off the planet and seek a way out back to civilisation and the best way to do that seemed to be to hire on with Anthony. Sooner or later, being a pilot, he might be able to find an opportunity to use one of Anthony's shuttles. On Flavin's advice he left the force lance behind and took a plain gun that the old man gave him.

Cont'd/.


	3. Chapter 3

Anthony was a classic gang leader, dangerous only because he used his brain. Ignoring Rhade's skill as a pilot for the moment, he saw muscle and proficiency with a gun to be used. If the man proved himself then maybe there would be a better use for him.

Rhade found that acting as an assistant for one Anthony's collection teams was an eye opening experience. He learned more about the culture in three days than he could have in a lifetime of reading about it. Life and death were such cheap commodities that no one really cared much about their own lives. The natural instinct for self-preservation seemed to have died in most people and violence was an accepted part of every day life.

More than that, violence actually seemed to be something the people enjoyed and Rhade could see the attraction of it. In the middle of one punch up after another, he could feel himself losing the tight control he had always kept himself under. He had never realised how much anger he had in him until he found himself in a situation with three taller densely muscled men, heavy worlders by their stockiness, and felt free to lash out as he saw fit. His blades itched to be set free, which only heightened the feeling of angry joy as each man was defeated.

After they were done for the day, Rhade went back to the shack and with only the foul mead to drink, took some away with him to think somewhere quiet. He needed to analyse and control the reasons for enjoying himself so damned much it left him shaking.

Louisa was the obvious cause. He hadn't had the time or solitude to mourn her properly. But then again, he'd never had the closure of his first wife's death, only the memory of her throwing herself protectively over their children as the firestorm rained down on them; no bodies were found, yet there had been no possibility of survivors. He was also angry that Terazed had been forced to come out of seclusion, her beauty destined to be spoiled by the war they had never wanted to join. His subsequent demotion. And Hunt offering hope to all that needed it even when it was hopeless, a flaw in Hunt's character that Rhade couldn't understand. Hope was all well and good when there was even the slimmest chance. But when the situation was beyond hope, to offer it was delusional and cruel. Although Rhade had to smile as he realised that he himself still held the hope the Hunt would arrive and take him back to civilisation again.

It had felt good to let go in the brawling, but it couldn't be allowed to continue; he couldn't allow himself to go down that dark path.

His introspection was suddenly interrupted as people started screaming and shouting chants and Rhade looked up. Meteors flew through the skies, not just one or two but what seemed to be hundreds, many falling towards them.

Rhade was nearly at the shack when the first of them hit the other side of settlement, shaking the ground beneath his feet. Reaching the shack he looked inside. There was no sign of Flavin, but the girl was cowering in a corner. He called to her as he picked up a couple of packs of food, mead and his force lance and she ran to him, clinging to his shirt.

Staggering along tilting pathways, Rhade took them into one of the tunnels that ran beneath the settlement. They could be buried alive down there, but at least they'd be alive to do something about it.

The tremors that told them the bombardment was still in progress seemed to go on for a lifetime and the girl eventually cried herself to sleep, tucked firmly against him.

When the tremors finally stopped and he woke her when he moved. They weren't buried alive and came out of the tunnel the same way they had gone in.

The settlement wasn't in as much disarray as the barrage of meteors had indicated. Most had probably cashed into the desert. There were areas where the shacks had been levelled which included the one they'd been staying in. They were already being looted and dead bodies were being fought over for their water content.

With the girl huddling close to his side, Rhade looked for anything he could use to give them shelter from the sun or transport to another settlement, or perhaps Anthony would have an opportunity he could exploit.

Before his thoughts had gone any further, however, a woman yelled and pointed to Florence shouting hysterically.

Hands tried to pull her away and he pulled her back, pushing her behind a cracked crate and standing in front protectively. The group of people surrounding them was growing rapidly, hysterical chatter vying with demands for him to hand her over. The one word he could make out was 'witch' over and over.

These people were looking for a scapegoat and they were more than happy to let a known witch be it. This particular witch was supposed to be living in the desert where she couldn't harm anyone. It was no surprise therefore that the meteor shower just so happened to arrive when she appeared. She had to answer for it.

Someone had sent for Anthony and the crowd parted for him. He ordered Rhade to hand her over.

"What will you do with her?" Rhade asked.

Anthony looked at the crowd, judging. "The people need assurances that what happened today will not happen again. She will have to die."

Rhade grunted as he considered the man's honest words and the crowd murmured its agreement. A part of him was screaming that he should abandon her and protect himself, but how could he evolve and become a better person if he were to allow an innocent to be lynched?

And besides, it was just at such a point of crisis that Hunt made it his business to turn up and save the day.

Rhade refused to hand the girl over and Anthony set his biggest and best bullies on him. The gloves were off and so were the wrappings that had hidden his bone blades. The crowd took a step back and the bullies halted mid stride.

Anthony stepped forward and commanded every gang member and enforcer to take Rhade down, preferably without killing him. It was inevitable that Rhade could not fight them all and he urged the girl to run, to slip back into the tunnels, something she could have done.

But she didn't. She threw herself on one of the men attacking him and bit down. All she succeeded in doing was enraging the man and getting herself thrown against a wall hard enough to stun her.

Rhade took down some of the men attacking him with the help of his force lance, but in the end the numbers were simply too great.

When Rhade came to, he found himself stripped to the waist and spread-eagled to a flogging frame. Night had fallen and small fires cast long shadows from the remains of walls and huts. He had been placed to one side of the rough circle, directly opposite the pile of crates that was the platform from which Anthony and his men held court. The centrepiece was the makings of a large bonfire to which the girl had been tied to a stake.

Anthony was in the middle of holding a mock trial. Asked to defend herself, Florence could only cry and talk about singing rocks and fools gold while her eyes searched wildly for things only she could see. Rhade tried to defend her, but was ignored.

The final nail in the girl's coffin was the appearance of the man whose skimmer they'd stolen. The man pointed at both her and Rhade and told a tale of witchcraft to make even the most hardened and ruthless men cringe. He told of the way the girl had magicked Rhade to make him into an enormous long clawed beast that had attacked and gored both he and his friend, destroying the skimmers while the witch herself promised death on all humanity.

The trial was ended as it was always intended and the fire beneath girl lit as the people cheered.

Anthony came off his podium to stand before Rhade. "You missed your trial," he informed him. "It was decided that you were under the girl's spell, so you don't need to die, but you do have to be punished. You're worth more to me alive you understand, for The Carnivale will pay me a great deal for you."

Rhade pulled against his bonds and the metal frame creaked. Anthony nodded at the men behind him and walked away.

Watching the flames dancing and licking at the girl's feet, Rhade barely felt the first cut. He tried to pull free, cursing and shouting for anyone to save her, but they all shied away, muttering that he was still under her spell.

Tossing her head, the girl finally met Rhade's eyes with both of her own and held them in a silent plea until her face screwed up in agony and she let loose the most inhuman scream.

He watched it all through to the bitter end, long past the point where she stopped screaming and long past the point where they stopped cutting him, leaving him to hang shocked and bleeding.

Cont'd/.


	4. Chapter 4

In the dead of night when the fires were banked and people were gone or asleep or too drunk to care, it was Flavin who cut him down and took him to yet another rickety shack.

Rhade lay uselessly on the rough matting as the old man saw to his wounds, his mind filled with fire and brimstone. The girl's screams mixed with Gillian's cries and Louisa's whispered words while fire blazed up and rained down burning him up both inside and out. He hadn't saved them, hadn't protected them. No one had, and no one cared. There hadn't been any last minute cavalry charge, no white knight, and any hope of rescue or salvation had died with the girl. The furnace raged out of control and he knew without a doubt that he could never hope to regain control.

He became aware of Flavin talking. "The meteors come every time someone comes through," he was saying as if talking about the weather. "But that was unlike anything I've ever seen. Must have been something big, I wouldn't be surprised if it were a giant spaceship or something come through, but who knows. We need to get you out of here, my friend, there's a small township further over. Thomas is a bit odd, but I have a residence near there and you can stay for a while and perhaps…"

"Shut up." Rhade growled softly and the old man did. If the Neitzchean had been able to see beyond the flames in his soul he would have seen the deep sadness and guilt in Flavin's eyes, but he was too lost to see anything at all.

During the clandestine journey, without the aid of a transport, Flavin fed Rhade strong liquor that numbed the pain from his physical wounds enough for him to keep going. Fortunately the people they'd left behind hadn't known much about Neitzchean physiology and had been primarily superficial in their punishment of him.

Rhade however, found another benefit in the liquor. It tamped down the fire inside, took the edge off and freed him up enough from the torment to function.

The other residence was bigger and far more robust than the shacks Rhade had seen since coming to Seefra. In fact, the small township was more robust, even boasting a bar and established shops and markets. Thomas might be 'odd' as Flavin had said, but he was very good at organising the people for the greater good. So long as they worshipped him and his book, of course.

Thomas and Flavin detested each other for reasons Rhade could only guess at and periodically Thomas would try and have Flavin killed, but the old man was born lucky and it had become almost a game between them.

Thomas himself gave Rhade an opportunity, offering him a one-off stint as co-pilot to one of his regular cargo runners, Denny. Denny, it seemed was not as profitable as he used to be and as his co-pilot had unfortunately come to a sticky end, Thomas thought that Rhade might like the job. On the understanding that any wrong doing by Denny would be brought to Thomas' attention for a bonus.

Thomas disliked technology mostly, except when it suited him, and it suited him to have runners carry goods for profit.

Unfortunately for Rhade, Denny was indeed guilty of wrong doing. Fortunately his Neitzchean hearing heard about it before his own demise came to be fact. Denny made a very surprised looking corpse and right there and then Rhade decided it was a smart move to take over where Denny had left off. Except Rhade was not stupid enough to do it behind Thomas' back.

For a mutually agreeable profit sharing agreement, Thomas was happy to let Rhade run the business and get his hands dirty which allowed Thomas to get on with being pristine and worshipped.

While Flavin and Rhade could have been friends in another time and place, here and now the girl was always between them. Mutual guilt over time turned to bitter resentment, until Rhade decided it was time to get his own place. He rented a room behind the bar from the barman, Sembler, and kept to himself there, never using the bar area. Familiarity would let people stop being scared of him, and he liked that they left him alone because of it. They weren't as intolerant as the people of the last place and with Thomas seeming to accept him, the people let him be.

He discovered an advantage to having a room behind the bar. There were other rooms there and they were used by the working girls. And some of the working girls seemed to like him. He resisted at first, but then it dawned on him that he had no one to be faithful to, no one to honour him with her choosing, and no one with whom he could ever fall in love again. A man's got to do, what a man's got to do, and along with the constant flow of alcohol, the sex helped contain the eternal agonising flames.

Sometimes he would wake up in the morning and look at himself in the mirror, frown at the length of his hair and make a half hearted attempt at shaving, but increasingly he couldn't see that it was worth the effort so he didn't bother.

So long as he left his room with his guns, two of them now, the force lance long abandoned somewhere, and a bottle within reach, he was set for the day.

Until one of Denny's contacts came up with an offer for a service that Denny had occasionally undertaken as a sideline. One of the local gang lords needed to have an accident quite urgently.

At first Rhade refused; he was no assassin. But then it transpired that the gang lord concerned was Anthony, and Rhade found it impossible to refuse.

Cont'd/.


	5. Chapter 5

Rhade looked down at Anthony's still twitching body and lamented the fact that he felt nothing at the killing but the eternal flames. Neither remorse nor satisfaction, nor anything else. He had hoped his anger might be assuaged, but the flames only burned more fiercely and he cursed himself for hoping anything; that had died along with a great deal else inside.

A noise behind him and he turned to face five men, including the man whose so called evidence had condemned the girl, all pointing guns at him. He considered them calmly. If he died here, then so be it. He wouldn't go without a fight, but he really didn't care what the outcome would be.

The fire fight lasted less than thirty seconds and Rhade was the only one left standing, entirely untouched. Looking at hem coolly, he still felt nothing but the inferno raging on.

As he walked slowly away, a man rounded a corner and bumped straight into him. The man looked frightened and in two minds whether to freeze or run, wavering between Rhade and the way out.

"You're in my way," Rhade informed him flatly and when the man simply stood and gibbered, he calmly and coldly shot him through the head. And still felt nothing.

"The people are very scared of you now," said Thomas as Rhade worked hard to drown the searing fires inside with alcohol.

"Let them be scared," Rhade replied taking another drink.

"They want me to condemn you," Thomas said. "They want me to assure them that you won't turn on them or bring some evil down upon us all."

At that the fire swelled and Rhade laughed nastily, spitting in Thomas' face. "Burn me at the stake, would you? Do it if you dare!"

Thomas recoiled but took himself in hand. "I have a better idea. Be my right hand. If I can show the people I have you under control, you can be under my protection. Be my enforcer, show them only I can control you, no one else."

Rhade started to laugh but thinking about it a little longer, he realised the benefits. He nodded. "But Flavin is then under my protection. Do him no harm."

Thomas' face screwed up in distaste at that. "We have a history," he said. "But I agree to your terms, so long as he does not stir things here."

"Agreed," said Rhade. If Flavin created his own death-trap then that was his problem.

"I have something for you, to seal the deal as it were," Thomas said and brought out a silver flask. "It looks much better to be drinking from this outside a bar. I wouldn't want my enforcer to look like a drunken bum."

Rhade accepted it with a small smile and looked at his reflection in the brightly polished metal. It was face he was growing to hate a little more each day.

FIN


End file.
